Multi Universes Trifecta
by Kaeru Shisho
Summary: Duo wakes up to discover he has two boyfriends living two different lives in two universes at the same time. When the third one comes around, it's over. Male/male pairings.
1. Chapter 1

**Multi Universes Trifecta**

Summary: Duo wakes up to discover he has two boyfriends living two different lives in two universes at the same time. When the third one comes around, it's over. Male/male pairings.

A/N: In horse racing terminology, a trifecta is a bet in which the bettor must predict which horses will finish first, second, and third in exact order. This is something like that. Without the horses or the racing or the betting. I'm keeping the" three" part. In that order, more or less.

Thank you, Waterlily, for the fabulous editing job while you moved across the world.

This story is for Snowdragon's birthday. Best wishes, sweetie!

* * *

**Chapter One- Home was never this good**

* * *

Seagulls crying in the distance. I loved that sound. It meant peace.

My eyes seemed glued shut. I wanted to leave them that way and float on the waves.

Rocking in a hammock.

Oh! At the beach house. _That's_ where I was. _Nice._

I lay straining to hear the bird calls and imagining the warmth of the sun, the cooling breeze off the sea, until the bird sounds morphed into human voices. I unpeeled one eyelid from its salty crust and peered into the vague, watery world of light outside my head.

Maybe I was underwater? I wiggled a finger; I know because I felt the fuzzy cloth under it. Ah. The sunbaked warmth came from a thin blanket.

I listened carefully and tracked the sound of air nearby. I tried focusing my eyes on that and the sea breeze turned out to emanate from a wheezy old air vent.

Not the beach. Not anywhere nice. Why had I opened that eye?

_Where am I?_ It was natural to want to know that first off, although, I was guessing from the disinfectant smell and minimal bedding that I was in a hospital. _Why?_ Well, that _would_ be the next logical question, wouldn't it? I felt no pain, but I wasn't all there, which could have signaled pain killers. _Why?_ And stepping on the heels of the whiny "why" was my next query: _what time is it?_

None of these questions got asked aloud, because I couldn't seem to talk. What I wanted was to go back to where I'd been and stay there—that warm peaceful place. So, I gave up on looking around the blurred universe and escaped back to nirvana.

(o)

When next I awoke-or more precisely, when I became aware of my surroundings because I don't think I'd been sleeping- I was in a car and groggy. Memories of waking in a medical room faded the more I tried concentrating on them. I had no idea how I got there or where I was going, but I did recognize the driver. Trowa Barton. His hair trimmed short in back hung long to one side over an eye, the one furthest from me. He looked young close up, with a tan and light freckles. Not knock-your-socks-off gorgeous, but damn good-looking in a quiet way. Nice. In profile he didn't have an aggressive jaw nor was his grip on the steering wheel a white-knuckled one of a man focused on the job—just the opposite. He was laid-back personified. He just oozed calm. I could relax knowing I'd left myself open to attack with him watching my back.

We were both in our Preventers work clothes. Why was that? My eyes closed on their own and I let those facts settle in my brain a moment, and then I knew we both worked in the same field office, so all was fine.

"Hey, you falling asleep on me?" Trowa asked.

I looked his way just in time to catch his hand moving over to rub against my thigh. My thigh! My brain strained to come to full alert status, but the only thing that did was my dick. Full steam ahead, Little Maxie!

"Um…"

"It's okay. It's been a hard day, I know, but we got Yuy's team in place without blowing cover and got out so we should enjoy our down time, as brief as it will be." Trowa said this while casting me a sly smile and turning off the freeway ramp to a broad avenue.

"Ah, yeah." I couldn't remember that assignment, but for some reason it didn't matter one iota. I accepted it with everything else as fact and moved with the flow.

"Pick a place and order up something and we'll swing by and pick it up." His hand moved further up my leg, definitely into Dangerous Territory. "Don't want to waste time I can be spending with my boyfriend."

Boyfriend!? Come again? Who me? I was Trowa Barton's boyfriend!? Me!? When…? Touch more! Oh yeah…

"You okay?" he asked, seriously. "Maybe we should go back and have the medics check that head of yours. You must have hit it on the aircraft door harder than I thought."

Pieces fit together now. I had awoken at some time in a hospital, no, the Preventers clinic, probably. Must have been that. I certainly didn't want to go back there and give up the opportunity of a roll in the hay with my buddy, noooo, my _boyfriend_, Trowa.

"No, I'm fine." And I realized that I felt terrific, in fact. Not a single ache or pain, which seemed a little weird. I always had something hurting from some minor, or major, injury I'd incurred during field work. But sorting myself out now, I absolutely felt better than ever. "Feel great! I was at the clinic and got checked out. They wouldn't have let me out if I wasn't. Just a little tired."

"Logical. Sally would have locked you in. You made it out to the car fine. Okay." I could see him checking that off his mental list and smile when he came up with the next rational excuse for me acting abnormally. "Must be in need of food. I could use some."

"And what _you_ got," I added gamely. When I saw the glitter in his eyes, check, single hazel _eye,_ I knew I'd said the right thing.

"Yeah, and yet you haven't called in an order."

"Ah." I found my cellphone where I expected it to be, in my inner jacket pocket, and looked up my contacts. Barton… Chang… "Chang?"

"As much as I admire the man, he can fend for himself. I want you alone tonight," Trowa remarked.

I'd been thinking "Chang takeout", but of course it must have been Wufei's number. Common enough name. Anyway, as good as I felt, my head wasn't exactly on straight yet.

"You're hopeless tonight," he sighed. "How about Turk's up ahead?"

"Okay." I was more interested in what Trowa's hand was doing, his nail buzzing along the inseam of my uniform slacks, and Little Maxie laboring under layers of clothing for more direct attention.

"At least that seems normal," Trowa observed.

Between his raspy voice and the additional pressure from his hand, my body was thrumming for more. Forget the food! But I didn't actually say that, so Trowa wended his way through the takeout line, ordered by memory (I just nodded at whatever), and, since I hadn't managed to get out my wallet, treated me to a dinner of what turned out to be falafel sandwiches, hot and fragrant. Love the food!

I couldn't wait to eat. We gobbled it in the parking lot, washing it down with some kind of minty, sweet tea drink.

"Much better. Where to now?" I asked, hoping it was home. Home. I conjured up a white-washed, wood structure bleached by the sun.

"I'm taking you home," Trowa said.

"Okay."

Home turned out to be Trowa's apartment. My stuff was there, too, I discovered when he opened the closet to hang our uniforms, so it was _our_ apartment. And the more I thought about it, the righter that felt. Sure. I lived with my boyfriend. Nice. It all fit together _nicely_. Real nice.

"I'll start the shower." Trowa said as he strode off.

I stood staring, detached, unable to voice my feeling as I watched him strip off his clothes. He turned my way and scooped the hair off his face. He was definitely expecting something, and for a second there I wasn't sure if this was really happening. There was, like, a wobble around the edges of my consciousness.

I chanced a smile. I'd have to show him I wasn't afraid to join him, that we'd done this dozens of times in the past, so I removed the rest of my clothing, folding them into a neat pile, even picking up Trowa's things, folding them and placing them side by side. The moment of doubt passed with a pins and needles feeling replacing the numbness. I'd done this before.

Hadn't I?

His hot lips were on mine and I felt dizzy and light. It was if every cell in my body struck a chord at once, sending a thrumming from my toes to my ear tips, and I fell into his arms. Hot water rained down and strong hands massaged my back. Our arousals surged together, mine slipping and sliding against that smooth hard place near his hips. I was shorter than him (in regards to height!) by inches.

It was like that. One minute I'd be floating and reveling in a flood of sensations, the next I'd notice some stupid detail. My brain on sex was firing like crazy. I came with a moan, and if he hadn't caught me, I probably would have ended up face down in the tub.

"Steady, Duo."

"Whoa, shouldn't exercise on a full stomach, heh, heh." I'd nearly passed out with happiness. The idea of getting regular sex with him sent my blood supply southwards, leaving me light-headed. "Let's do that again," I suggested.

He raised an eyebrow.

"I'm fine, really. I wouldn't lie about being injured. Not to you." That seemed to convince him. Man, he must have been crazy about me to make it that easy, though, which was comforting to know. Getting Trowa to trust you wasn't a given thing; he probably hadn't granted more than a handful of people that exceptional offering. So it mattered. A lot.

"After we dry off," he said. "I think you're safer horizontal on a mattress."

Right! This was what I'd always wanted. I was living my dream for real. I felt overwhelmed with happiness and wonder.

And yet… something wasn't quite right.

Stupid me. What more could I want? And then I sighed, selfish thing that I was. Here I lay wrapped in the comforting embrace of the man who loved me. He'd _told_ me so. Trowa Barton _loved_ me. What more _could_ I want?

My eyes wanted to close, but I fought them. I didn't want to lose this feeling of wellbeing and I had the gut feeling everything would be whisked away when I slept. Silly really. Trowa was breathing deeply, asleep. I closed my eyes and instantly regretted it. I wrenched them open again, taking _way_ too great an effort to be right. A woozy feeling coursed through my body, affecting my vision so that the outline of Trowa asleep on my chest grew foggy, and my ears, so that I could only dimly hear the ticking of the clock on the wall…

(o)

That same feeling of well-being garnished with well-deserved (I thought so) suspicion followed me into the morning. My body felt really good and so did the one I'd wrapped myself around. Smooth warm skin over hard muscle and it fit just right—and that wasn't quite as it should be. Trowa was taller; I'd discovered this in the shower and remembered clearly how our bodies slid into comfortable positions. Now my knees fit into his, my hips around the luscious bottom I hoped to explore more deeply, and when I felt around with my toes, our ankles matched. Possibly it was how we were bent, or I'd grown overnight, but Trowa's smell had changed. Not that I usually kept attuned to how people smelled, but when you've been as intimate as Trowa and I had been, that musky something stuck around in your head, my head anyway. And this was a new scent.

A queer doing-wrong feeling ached through to my teeth. I even felt my hair lift with it. I snatched my hands away.

"Duo? You awake?"

I shot up, eyes open wide, flailing at the sheets. That hadn't been Trowa's voice at all! "Waa-a?"

Hands I knew could bend steel clung to my shoulders or I would have upended onto the floor.

"Duo!?" my bedmate cried out. He looked angry but then puzzled and then worried, probably as the shock of my outburst wore off bit by bit. The fingers released me and rubbed my shoulders in circles. Oooh, yeah… Nice…

"You haven't been on a hair-trigger like thatfor years. Bad dream?"

_Years?!_ I'd been sleeping with Heero Yuy for _years? _ Yeah, it was Heero. His coarse dark hair fell into his face and he raked it out of his eyes- penetrating, staring, deep, dark blue pools of earnest concern.

"Sorry." It was all I could think of to say. I certainly wasn't about to tell him I thought I'd been in bed with Trowa, wherever he was. And Trowa's complete disappearance should have bothered me more than it did, but it didn't. Even though Trowa was my boyfriend and I lived with him? What was with that? I lived with one guy and had another on the side for what amounted to _years?_ If that was true, they were both pretty dense or… they couldn't pass up Duo the Slut Supreme under any circumstances.

And the name fit because when Heero pulled me into a mind-stunning kiss, I just let my bold friend tumble me flat on my back amongst the pillows, take me for a ride and have his way.

"Let me make you forget it," he murmured. His way was my way; apparently my body thought so with Little Maxie leading the way. "God… love you, Duo…"

How lucky was that? I filled with this crazy-ass, hilarious pleasure and nearly burst out laughing. Heero Yuy in love with me! And Trowa! Both!

"Take me," I begged.

It must have been great because I heard the sound of a distant fog horn, and I loved that sound. Surrounded by the comforting warmth of that cared-for feeling, I knew someone was looking out for me and submitted entirely to the wonder of it.

If only that niggling feeling of something missing would go away.

(o)

"What happened?" I wondered, growing tired of feeling groggy and wondering where I was, why, and, most terrifying of all, with_ whom_.

This time it was Trowa sitting up in bed holding his phone. Almost by reflex, I looked up at the wall knowing I'd find his wall clock. 5:00 AM. God-awful time.

"Heero's not responding." His face was lined with concern.

"To what?" I even looked around expecting to find Heero's lifeless body—or something.

Trowa must have been worried. He kept to the facts and didn't give me hell for not paying attention. "He didn't report _in_."

Ah, of course. Trowa and I had dropped his team off. Heero always reported in at designated times. Greenwich Time could be set by his activities. A "no call" meant serious trouble.

Trowa was pulling on clothes, so I got up expecting to be weary, but, once again, there I was feeling like a million bucks.

"Director's office ASAP for orders," he told me.

"Count me in."

This time, I hadn't even closed my eyes for a microsecond when…

(o)

Thrown into confusion again! Too fast… too fast!

I had assumed in a muddled and buried way that I had been bounced into another change of houses—that would be Heero's this time? But instead I was surrounded by billowing smoke. No, not smoke. The fogginess was cold as well as thick, contributing to my serious lack of sense of direction. I looked around, everything was a mist, and panic was about to set in. I staggered and a hand grabbed me. It gave me a vivid, physical shock, like a live wire, but it worked to collect my wits. _Heero._ It was Heero's support that got me my footing back.

"Thanks." I gave him a flustered smile.

"Hn." Heero smiled back at me. "My boyfriend's become a klutz."

The pins-and-needles feeling I'd felt before was gone, replaced – some seconds ago when I thought about it—by a very nice feeling that all was well.

Well, it was _about time_. It didn't occur to me to mention Trowa's concern for his no-call from work. In fact, that seemed unreal and very, very far away now. Heero was obviously safe. I was okay. We were happy. All was well.

"I guess. Maybe I'm growing?" I grinned back and noticed the fog clearing behind his head.

The breeze smelled of fish and things oceanic. A gull screeched by, swirled overhead and landed near our feet.

I had a bag of sandwiches. As if by magic it appeared in my hand. I was carrying it and in retrospect I must have bought the food to bring along on our walk and share. I dug around a bit, and tore off a bit of crust.

"If you give him that," Heero warned, "you'll have the entire gull population after the rest of our picnic."

"He doesn't look villainous," I said, but dropped my hand and re-sealed the top of the bag.

"'Greedy beggars' Quatre calls them." Heero draped an arm across my shoulders and we resumed our stroll on the beach.

"Opportunists," I corrected. "If you're hungry, soliciting food isn't an act of greed." I'd had to steal food to eat at _way_ too young an age. I never had sufficient food and never took more than I could eat unless it was to share with a less nimble, equally starving kid.

"You're right," Heero said supporting me in every way. He added a firm squeeze around my shoulders, sending shivers down my spine. Good shivers. I didn't want to interrupt the wonderful moment with questions. I'd live in the moment.

The sand felt warm after a few minutes of sun so we meandered to the water's edge and dipped our toes. We rolled up our pant legs and splashed a little deeper.

"Found a shell!" I found a piece of a clam all sun-bleached and its rippled edge worn smooth from being tossed by the waves over and over into the sand.

"I found a treasure, too," Heero said. A finger ran along my jaw, others dug into my hair, and then he tipped my head to the side. Our mouths mashed together as our bodies crushed into one critical mass of explosive material. Hot damn!

"I'm enjoying our vacation already," he said when we came up for air. "Are you?"

Ah, a piece of information! I was vacationing with Heero. Cool.

"Yeah, this is the best. Love this place." I said that as we rounded a dune and a house came into sight. It stood back a ways and atop a cliff. White-washed and bleached by the sun. Under a wide porch hung a pair hammocks and a window looking out over the sea. I knew it was where we were staying the instant I saw it.

"I have good news."

"Yeah?" I wondered, _what now?_

Heero frowned a little more, adding on to his often grumpy facial expression. "I said 'good' not 'terrible'."

"So, tell me." I couldn't help but tense up ready to run or kill something.

"Relax," Heero said. "It's just that Quatre told me he'd consider selling us the house."

I looked up at my dream house. "That one?"

"None other." Heero appeared pleased.

"Cool." I smiled. Can we afford it?-type questions had no place in this universe, apparently. I liked the magical wave-of-a-hand sort of way things simply fell into place here and wouldn't think of altering how things worked. "What can we do to convince him to sell now, do you think?"

"I thought _you'd_ have an idea." He led us up a narrow trail to the house.

"Me?"

"You, yes." Heero wasn't being serious. He was in fact being playful and fun. I could count on one hand the number of times I could recall seeing him this way—one hand missing four fingers.

"Couldn't we just low-ball him an offer and pray for his benevolence?"

"No. He likes a challenge. You know how he is. He'll dilly-dally around for ages if we don't prod him. I was considering extortion, but we can't blackmail him unless _you_ have something on him. He never breaks a rule and he's so scrupulously honest."

"Right and bribery is out." I was confused about many things, but Quatre Winner's self-sufficiency was a surefire bet. "There's nothing we got he can't get himself."

"Almost nothing." Heero looked absolutely wicked and could not hold it in. It was an expression rarely seen, so I knew he was keen on something. I'd wait him out so he could get the maximum enjoyment out of his secret knowledge.

We reached the house and sat on the wood-slat floor of the porch, our legs dangling into the sand. No doubt about it this was somewhere safe; somewhere I could lean back and just be me, rather than an agent, ex-Gundam pilot, fighter always on alert. I could stay here forever like this. If only… Damn it all. There was that irritating voice in my head prompting me to think. Things weren't perfect as is.

And then Heero capped it off by leaning over and kissing me. If that didn't make me feel like a guilty two-timing cheater, nothing would!

"I could eat if you offered me something," Heero said, hinting badly.

The bag I'd been carrying contained a complete meal for two. From the neat packaging and cute labels I determined that we'd gone for a walk to buy this. Grilled tuna on rye, pickles (I never would have gone to that much trouble to include pickles, but I loved them!), chips, and lemonade sodas.

"So, what is it that Quat can't get for himself?" I asked at last. I could only hold out so long, not as long as Heero, obviously.

"Chang." In a single word, succinctly put, Heero blew my mind. And it was pretty shot by this time.

"You mean Wufei?" Surely not the takeout joint…

Heero nodded.

"Quat _likes_ him?"

"Yes."

"Likes him, as in a has-the-_hots_ for him kinda way?"

"Yes."

"Damn."

"And Wufei doesn't know it."

"Um," I wondered at that. Wufei was nobody's fool. Unless he was an idiot at romance, which was a distinct possibility in this universe. Yes, I'd come to think of this reality as my Heero Universe.

"And he would like to ask him out, but can't bring himself to do it. If we could make that happen, he would owe us," Heero concluded.

"Big time," I agreed.

I heard a ringtone and felt a wave of nausea. "Don't answer that."

Heero did. "I have to. It's a work emergency."

His face pulled down into a concentrated frown as he listened and I knew it was Trouble summoning us from our vacation time. I had been right to warn him. When he ended the call, I was already standing. I just _knew_ we would have to go. I could just _feel_ it.

"T-trowa's…" Heero's voice cracked. I could see he was really upset. "Trowa's come up missing in action."

"We'll find him." I knew we had to leave immediately, but remembered I had no idea where in the world we were headed. "Office?"

"Airport. Leave our bags."

From that I guessed Heero intended to find Trowa and return here. _Vacationus interruptus _**not**_ endous._

The day had suddenly thickened with clotting clouds blotting out the sunlight. I felt wobbly and had a moment to firmly plant my feet before the horizon tilted on its axis.

**TBC**


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two - Work was never this much fun**

* * *

I was _nearly_ prepared this time for being yanked out of Heero's universe and dropped down the rabbit hole to end up in Trowa's. _Nearly_. I had to get my bearings first.

The scent of coffee sent my head spinning. I saw people seated- correct that- agents in uniform, all with their personalized coffee mugs.

_When had we become a hot-beverage toting society_, was my question?

Damn, how long had it been since I'd had a cup of coffee? Too long, obviously, and yet love it as I might, I didn't feel a craving about to drive me wild with desire. Had I detoxed along my multi-universe passage?

Possibly, but I still required food to fuel this fine body of mine. I didn't see that happening here at the conference table. I thought then that I should pay attention to the buzz of voices around me, which so far had not completely distracted me from my internal ramblings, my doubts, and my questions.

All hopes of lunch, followed by a little afternoon delight, were quashed by the piercing yap of Director Une's voice. I kept my hands folded in my lap and eyes focused on the reams of papers strewn in front of me. One read like gibberish: "Tertiary obstacles at reclining angles 60 degrees Tuesday with struts on mark five." Another _was_ gibberish: "Thend offles ton of knucbabules or not fuices quit on able."

I filled with quivering animal wariness; first from discovering I had not one but two boyfriends and that both were in trouble of some dire nature, and then that I'd have to save them before I could sort things out, and that I'd have to do that before I lost my mind.

Concentrate. What was the purpose of the mission Heero was on, I wondered? Then I felt the hunger pangs kick in again. It was either this universe or Une's secretary was falling down on the job, but the service was definitely going downhill. Something was missing. Where were the coffee and doughnuts for this meeting? I say!

"Any chance that I could get me some coffee and… (think nutrition)… a bagel?" I asked, blurted out, really, just to test the fabric of this reality for holes.

"Maxwell!" Une's scorn could be felt through a Gundanium shield, I was sure. "If you had arrived on time, you would have enjoyed the catered meal. There's no time now to bring _one_ person up to speed. Now, Agent Barton, if you would proceed?"

_Late?!_ I felt the blood drain and a cold stabbing pain in my chest brought on by one of those eerie feelings that I had just walked into a test on the last day of class, a Preventers training class I'd managed to miss all year. Everyone else was ready to go, but not me. I was still sorting out my schedule. Was this the right room? How would I make up the work? How much else had I missed? _Ahhhh!_

ERG! How could any of this _be?_ _THINK!_ I must have arrived at work with Trowa, which means we came together, at the same time, and _he_ wasn't late. Or he _was_ and she didn't care. I always did find her distressingly captivated by Trowa, _my_ Trowa. So, _he_ could arrive late and pass muster, but not _me_.

I couldn't be dreaming this garbage, could I? And yet, it was just too fucked up to be _real._ I pinched my arm and it hurt. Reality it was. Maybe.

"He gave us an 'all clear', so we know his team landed on target." That was Trowa's voice so I cast a look his way. Trowa was sticking a pin onto a map, marking our drop-off point. I remembered that, him telling me we dropped Heero's team for some mission—which would remain pointless, apparently. "And we know the team had a day's march to get to here." Another pin marked that spot.

"Agent Yuy never reported in and is currently six hours overdue. We have to assume the team never reached their destination." The director pointed to the table as if the answer could be found there. "How many facilities were they to investigate?"

Again Trowa picked up a pile of pins and began fixing them into different points on the map. "Ten are scattered in the area. Six are considered 'safe', two 'unknown' but not suspicious, and the last two-," Trowa used tacks with round red heads to mark these, "—are rated 'hot' targets."

"One of those unknowns is just off the path that they were heading on," I pointed out, not that everyone else couldn't see that. And I noted that my mission would probably have _that_ for a destination. Nasty place. I did not want to go there and I was pretty darn sure Heero wasn't there.

Why was I so sure? I just was. I'd just been walking on the beach with him. The universes had to be connected, since I was in them all, making me a link. I didn't know my universe-hopping science, but no one else even had a clue—and I was _sure_ Heero was fine.

"Would you care to explain how you know that, Agent Maxwell?" Une was glaring at me again.

A roomful of eyes were staring at me, waiting. I hadn't thought I said all that out loud. Cool. Not.

"It's just a gut feeling, uh, ma'am, er, sir." I sounded lame even to me.

"The only man whose gut feelings I respect are Winner's," the director informed us all, telling me in particular that she didn't give a rat's ass what I felt. That public near-execution during the war should have clued me in on that—no, I never forgot that or forgave her for publicizing my face on the news all over the universe.

I figured I was going to be kicked out on my ear any second, which I didn't want. I liked my job- check that- I liked having a job. I looked for Trowa. He might help me out of this? But he was mired deep in discussion with Angelica Myers or Emerson or something or other. Her new married name escaped me, but she I recognized as another agent he and I had teamed with a long time ago. Great. I was on my own.

Une was staring at him. Her eyes dark. She was lusting over his nicely khaki-covered ass! Hey! That ass belonged to me! I'd never had a boyfriend until now and I damn well was going to keep this one. To achieve this goal I jumped to my feet and opened my mouth to protest loud and clear.

Trowa turned his face my way. He wore this languid, perfectly satisfied expression. In fact his entire repose screamed laid-back, or just _laid_. Ah, okay that explained why I, **we**, were late coming to this meeting. Heh, heh… I'd take six-star sex over a billion-star breakfast, anytime. And apparently I had. I wish I could remember _that!_

I was feeling a little light-headed (when had I eaten last?) when who should appear but Quatre Winner in the flesh, at my side, dragging me out of the room.

"Let me see what's on his mind, Director," Quatre was saying. "There's something at work here, I can tell."

Une must have given him her blessing, because she didn't stop us from leaving. We didn't go far, just the adjoining room. And we won't alone. Wufei in a dark cloud of misery was there, too.

"What the _hell_ are you doing?" Wufei said.

"I _thought_ Quat and I were going for a hush-hush little rendezvous, but with you here I guess we're not."

My jest got sucked up by Wufei's black hole of a mood, and my face nearly smashed in by his fist of fury.

"Wufei!" Quatre snapped. "Give Duo a chance!"

Wufei clammed up instantly. Really. Pulled himself together- and in. Like a clam. All quiet and tight.

"That's better. Now, Duo. Tell me what's wrong. I can feel nothing but muddle about you."

Muddle. Yep.

So, what was there to tell? And then it came to me like manna from heaven, what Heero had told me about Quatre's feelings for Wufei, and might—just might—hold true in this universe too. It gave me the idea that my buddy Quat might understand about my Trowa-Heero conundrum. It wouldn't hurt to try. Maybe. Of course, it had been in Heero's world that Quatre was lusting after Wufei. I had no idea if that held up in this, Trowa's universe. So, it _could_ hurt to try.

"Okay. This will be hard to believe—"

I heard a noise from Wufei, but since he was practically inaudible to me, I went on to tell my story. "First, I woke up in what I think was the Preventers clinic. Then I woke up here, um, with Trowa."

Another snort, and then unable to keep in inside any longer, Wufei burst out with, "Don't insult our intelligence. You bumped your head, but it was _only_ your head, so you are fine. And _everyone_ knows you live with Barton."

"He's your boyfriend," Quatre added with delight.

At this point I wondered if my comrade in arms were playing good cop bad cop with me. If Quat was sounding pleased as punch, 'Fei was there to _deliver_ a punch.

"Tell us something we don't know," Wufei demanded.

"Are you done biting my head off?" I asked Wufei.

His mouth opened then snapped shut. I took that as a "yes, Duo, I am done and very, very sorry to have interrupted you. Please proceed." I could script his lines better than him. "Fine. So, I was just setting the scene. I didn't want to put you both off by telling you I-I move in different worlds." I heard a gasp and a grunt and rushed on before I lost my nerve to say it out loud. "Okay, so here's where it gets weird."

Wufei sniffed.

"Weird-_er_. When I woke up the next time I was… with Heero."

"And by _with_," Quatre asked with so much reticence I nearly laughed, "you mean-?"

"In bed naked," I said ending his misery, or adding to it. "And I was _his_ boyfriend."

Wufei snorted and muttered something that sounded like "in your dreams," but I'm not sure. Look who was talking! I didn't see a ring on his finger!

"And then ka-bang! I'm back with Trowa and he gets a call that Heero's in trouble and then whoosh! I'm back with Heero and Trowa's lost and then whoosh! again and I'm here and Une's arranging a search party for Heero and I know where he is and he's fine, just like Trowa's pretty okay too."

"It sounds terrible, Duo. So confusing for you." At least Quat was commiserating, although I kept my eyes on the both of them in case one of my _friends_ tried notifying the mental ward to commandeer me away.

"Yes and no. There were good times. Especially at that beach house of yours, Quat. That was awesome."

"What house?" he asked, baffled.

"The one you lent 'Ro and me."

"He means mine," Wufei said. "I think, but you've never stayed there."

"On a cliff, whopping big porch with two hammocks-?" I would have described it down to the number of nails in the floorboards, but he butt in.

"Impossible! You have _not_ been there." Wufei turned to Quatre imploring his back up, I was guessing. "Duo's obviously overworked and needs a vacation."

Quatre shook his head. "I actually believe him. His state of mind, his confusion is so perplexing and hard to explain any other way."

"Oh, Quatre, you can't be serious," Wufei scoffed.

"I am! Duo, I want to help you." Clad in a three-piece, dove grey suit and crisp white shirt, Quatre didn't look ready to dive into the jungle and hunt for a missing Heero. Now _that_ would have helped me. Normally (Ha!) Quat's job was low on feats of action hero magnitude. He ran Une's Public Relations department and acted like a Preventers goodwill ambassador all over the Earthsphere. But if he really wanted to help me, he could be running search parties for Heero, freeing me up so I wouldn't have to. I could be stopping Heero from his wild goose chase (Trowa was a guy, so maybe that would make it a gander hunt instead?) in the other universe.

He put a hand on my arm, eyes twinkling. "But first tell me how you feel about Heero, and Trowa, _both _of them."

"Um…" Now, there was the question I hoped he wouldn't ask. The Quatre _I_ knew wouldn't have. I don't think. He interfered with the lives of political stooges, but not my friends, or me. "… that's a tough call. When I really think about it, in my universe, the one I started out in, I'm not with anyone, especially not either of them. I'd never want to jeopardize our friendships trying to choose one over the other, if either of them actually felt a thing for me, which I don't know."

"Really? I should never have guessed." Wufei hadn't been cowed by the nonviolent wrath of Quat for long. Big surprise there. "And how do you suggest you do that now? But while you consider the problem, please don't underestimate Barton's territorial tendencies. He's not liable to want to share, _even_ you- _even _with Yuy."

I didn't like where he put the emphasis, but he had a point. "Oh. Yeah." Another pothole in the rocky road to my happy place.

"Not to mention," Wufei put in, knowing I was losing ground, and rocky ground at that, "relationships within Preventers are frowned upon to begin with but one that complex and fraught with—"

"Yeah, and that, too." I cut him off. I didn't want to hear what he thought my proposed three-way relationship would be _fraught _with.

"We will figure this out, Duo. I promise." Quatre gave the impression that he could and would do exactly what he promised. No wonder Une locked him into public relations.

I felt a slight tug and there was my braid in his hand. Quatre Winner was petting it like… like it was some _cat!_

"Um…" I gave it a test jerk and he freed it, but then his hands were all over me! Not all his hands, just one and it was resting on my uniform just over my heart, and he was gazing into my eyes all dreamy-like. Oh, God help me.

"Relax, Duo. I can read your emotions better this way," he purred. Now who was the cat?

I made the mistake of looking up in time to catch Wufei glaring at me, murder in his eyes, messy, bloody murder. I returned what was intended to be the appearance of blamelessness. Who knows what that idiot saw?

"I think you ought to ask the director for some downtime." Wufei spit out each word deliberately. "I can't imagine her turning you down." Wufei folded his arms over his chest and leaned against the wall.

"It's not the worst idea," Quatre agreed. He stepped away and didn't make another grab for my hair. He smiled over his shoulder at the angry presence holding up the near wall. "He could stay at your beach house, couldn't he Wufei?"

It wasn't fair of Quat to put our sour-faced buddy on the spot, but he did knowing that, I'm sure. And I didn't mind watching Wufei's face go through contortions as he tried to harness his inner angry-little-man and put on a professional mask.

"I'd consider it," I said in a flight of my own whimsy. Why not add a little fuel to the inferno? I could hold my own in a fight with 'Fei and I was closer to the door.

Wufei hopped to action, pushing off the wall and leading Quatre to the door by the elbow. "Duo and I need to work out the details. Would you talk to Director Une and get her approval?"

Once he'd closed the door on our friend, he turned on me. "I don't know what your game is—" He held up a hand to stop me from telling him, so he never was going to know, was he? "—and I don't care, now. What I do care about it that you don't drag him into some mess."

"Who? You mean Quatre? I wouldn't—" and if he meant Trowa, I wouldn't hurt him either, on purpose.

"Good." He narrowed his black as ink eyes and studied my face.

It came to me _then_ that all this posturing was about protecting Quatre and _that_ could only mean one thing—Quatre was important to _him_ in a _Big Way_. Time for me to mull things over a bit. What if in this universe it was Wufei pining away for Quat instead of the other way around? Made about as much sense as anything else did. If it was so, and Heero thought he could bring match-making skills to the table, then maybe it meant I had bargaining space, too. Boo-yah! I was so incredibly kick-ass I could happy-dance myself across the room and lay one big smacker of a smooch on Fei-fei.

Instead of basking in my brilliance, and throwing away my life for that kiss, though, I took a chance and asked, "Does he know?"

"Wha?"

"Quatre. Does he know you're hot for him?"

"I'm not…" But since he _was_, denying it would be a flat-faced lie, and he knew it was a lie and knew I'd know it was a lie. That would be unjust of him, so there.

"I won't tell. Cross my heart!" I once wore a cross on a chain like a proud symbolic reminder that I never told lies. Sadly, I lied on occasion now, so I didn't wear it, but Wufei was quick on the uptake about symbol-type things, so I knew he'd know the drill and make the necessary connections and trust me.

"Yes, I'm… attracted, but he doesn't know."

Winner! Finally, I was getting the hang of this multi-universe trifecta I was stuck in. Too bad no one was keeping score.

And so, he and I worked out a little scheme whereby I'd hook him up with Quatre, if the dude was willing, and Wufei would sell me his beach house after I checked it out. It had to be the right place, or else no deal. It was the first time he and I had ever chatted like old friends that I could remember. There was no telling how we got along in Heero's universe, but in mine and in this one I was the tolerated comrade at arms, at best. I was feeling a bit of the old warm and fuzzy for the guy, practically ready for some slap-on-the-back, arm-and-arm, I'll-buy-you-drinks-type chummy stuff.

Our private little _tête-à-tête _was abruptly ended, as one would come to expect living the tumultuous life I was, when Trowa stormed into the room shouting. It was for the best, breaking up our little party before either of us had made a total fool of ourselves.

"Duo! I've been hunting all over for you. We got to move fast. We can drop by the lockers for our packs and make it to the tarmac by oh-four hundred—just!"

"Tro', um, babe," I tried that out on him and he stopped dead in his tracks and stared slack-jawed at me, well, almost. He was surprised. I struck while the Gundanium laser sword was hot. "I got a better idea. I think I know how to find Heero and it's not in the jungles of Brazil. Quatre and Wufei agree (I was tempting fate and stretching the truth all in one blow)—" I cross-checked if Wufei was about to go ballistic, but he wasn't in the room, and I hadn't even noticed his leaving? "That this is the best course of action." There! Said.

"Duo? Are you sure?" he asked.

"And one more thing I gotta do. Don't move!" I dashed out the door sweeping by him like a hound hot on the tail of…well, after a fox or a cat …or a mouse.

Quatre was gabbing with the director, hopefully getting me a reprieve from duty as promised. I dashed up and pulled him away in a rude manner I wouldn't have dreamed of doing in my world. "That hand thingy, where you read my feelings?"

"Duo! What are you doing here?"

"Listen to me and stop sputtering, will ya? That's better. Now, putting your hand over my heart helps to read me?"

He gave in at last and contributed to the conversation. "Skin to skin contact is even better."

"Really? Well, that _is_ even better. Try that on Wufei."

"Oh, I'd never!"

"Be bold. You know you'd love to be the brazen hussy for once. Just do it! Slip those paper-shuffling little fingers of yours under his shirt and ask him how he feels about you. Do it for me, and I'll love you forever. Just do it!"

I said the last part running backwards, heading for the room containing my patient boyfriend, I hoped, and nobody else, I hoped even more. I also held out hope for a meal. Me and Hope were tight, believe me. Trowa'd be down with eating soon, I guessed, having missed out on breakfast, too.

The director's last words, launched in my direction were: "Straighten out your head. You have three weeks!"

If only…

Trowa was standing alone in the room as I'd wished. Maybe looking a little less calm and a bit more ruffled, but he had waited, and Wufei hadn't returned.

"Duo, what's all this about? We have a timetable if we want to find Heero."

"About that, we just have to get to that vacation house—"

We reached out for one another about the same time. When we touched, I could see the hair on my arms stand upright.

Not _now!_ No universe leaping now!

I was looking forward to some happy Trowa-time, the kind I remembered having with only one universe between then and now. And lunch.

But I knew in the time it took to note the water carafe beyond his shoulder and realize I was thirsty, that it was too late.

Or was it? Focus, Maxwell! Possibly I had some control over my leaps and bounds. Was it the timing or the destination-? My eyes landed on a framed painting. No! No ships on a stormy sea! There, a nice calm river picture. Water flowing beneath an arbor of green… was that a kayaker fighting through raging rapids? No! Ramparts of spray-slickened black rock sprang from the creamy office walls and I was wearing a t-shirt and jeans—no uniform. There was shock plastered all over Trowa's pasty face.

**TBC**


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three – The weather was never this random**

* * *

Then I was in rushing cold water up to the shoulders. Iron claws seized me around the waist and hauled me through the rushing shallows and out onto a strip of turf beside some rocks. I fell to my knees and stayed there, gasping for breath. Just out of reach stood Heero, barely panting after dragging us both through that deadly current. We were dripping, looking shiny-dark and skinny like weasels, and starting to shiver.

"You saved me," I noted when I caught enough breath to talk. "Thanks."

I stared behind me at a mighty river where there had been a modern office before. At least it wasn't in the middle of a jungle with animals at the ready to slice and dice or to drain the blood out of a man at every turn. This felt more like Sanc, inland from the coast where my house by the beach stood, but I could easily have guess wrong. It has happened.

In spite of our situation, which wasn't good, my mind drifted on to pleasanter topics. _My _house. In my mind, ownership papers had already been transferred. It was a done deal.

"Our backpacks are lost," Heero said mournfully.

"My fault?" I guessed.

He shook his head. "Heavy rain from the mountains must have flooded the gorge. You saw the rock walls."

"Straight sides of basalt." I pictured it perfectly, as if I'd been there.

"We had no choice but to—"

"Go with the flow?" I said with a smile. Now that I know I wasn't to blame for the current mess we were in, I felt a little better. Cold to the bone, but less guilty. I may have been loving two men at the same time, but, damn, when I was with one of them I could put my all into it, couldn't I?

"We need dry things and food," Heero droned in that drab monotone he would fall back into when he turned mission-oriented. He looked across the river, bank to bank.

I had already looked and seen enough. "We should stay on this side and head downstream. We'll either end up at the beach or find a settlement. Whatcha think?"

"Acceptable."

I was about to begin our journey, when I found he'd completely enveloped me in a hug. I felt him tremble and it wasn't all about the cold, because the sun burst past the cloud cover right then and I felt the warming rays on my back immediately. The grass around us looked soft and inviting, so we lay down. I had a moment of misgiving, thinking of all the bugs that might be sharing our love nest, but it was a fleeting thought and the bugs turned into butterflies and flew away.

We stripped in tandem, stretching out our clothes atop bushes to dry.

"You can top," he said, taking the ground level for his mattress. "I don't mind."

_Hot_ _damn_, Heero was beautiful laying there, his sun-kissed skin glowing, opening to me. He moaned my name with every kiss, a real turn-on, and we came, forcefully, crying out names, mine and his. This time I purposely kept my eyes open. I wasn't ready to give up this Heero in this lovely place only to discover myself catapulted into the next set of dire circumstances. And grim it would be having only nasty, dry rations to eat and no chance of sex in the jungle, if it turned out that Trowa didn't choose to follow my lead elsewhere. I'd fantasized a Heero like this to have and to hold, but never presumed it would ever actually come about. If I had to stay in one place, I would choose this universe.

And yet… Trowa had been an amazing lover and so intent on pleasing me. I did love him. I loved Heero, too. Neither universe seemed complete without the other man. How greedy was that? Not one, but two boyfriends were required to complete Duo's happiness!

"Hey," Heero bumped my arm. "Our clothes must be dry. We can clean up by the river and get going."

"I am hungry." I was starving, actually. Was this how I would end my days? In perpetual hunger? My first memories as a hungry child merging with my last.

"It's not much farther to town, if the people back at the wayside were correct about this trail."

Wayside. Huh. So we had started out in a car, perhaps and left it back someplace…the wayside? Maybe? "What about the airport?" I asked. Last I remembered that was where Heero and I were headed, hell-bent on saving Trowa. "Don't get me wrong, I don't want to go there, just wondering."

"You haven't changed your mind about skipping the airport and just going to the beach house, have you?"

About a hundred times since…yesterday? The day before? Lots recently. "Not really."

He looked into my eyes and swept back my bangs to look closer. "Not concussed."

Not my poor head! Not this again!

"When the tree hit the car, I thought you were bumped," he said running fingers over my scalp in search of a lump.

"I feel fine; I just have a few missing minutes in there. So a tree fell on our car? Kinda against the odds, right?"

"We took the mountain pass from the coast, heading to the airport, when the storm hit and a landslide blocked our road," Heero recited by rote, staring into the far distance for focus. "We had no choice but to go back while we had the chance. We turned around and drove no more than a car length, when a tree toppled onto the roof of the car and we stopped. We walked to a wayside where other cars were collecting and used the restrooms." He paused to meet my eyes. "You wanted a shortcut back and were informed about this trail."

"And it followed the river and that's how we ended up half-drowned to this point." I just lived that part, for Gods-sakes, I should remember it!

"I was fine," Heero said with a fractional smile. "Only you were drowning."

"Heh, like I said—_half_-drowning, _my _half!" We laughed a little and by God it felt good to laugh!

What this meant was that we were heading down stream toward the mouth of the river, where it met the sea. There was a small harbor and town only a mile from the beach house. "That's exactly the right direction." For a change.

When we could, Heero and I walked hand in hand. A blustery wind pushed clouds across the sky, taking the storm inland and northwards. We crossed the green meadow and dipped under a canopy of firs where our shoes crushed tiny needles so many layers thick that we bounced with each step. If it wasn't for my empty stomach growling at me, I would have been perfectly happy.

After an hour's easy hike, the trail became more of a rustic gravel road, and I saw the first signs of a town. A shack, tumbling down and moss and fern covered, like the plants were trying to take back the wood it was built from. Heero heard the sound of cars on a road, so we made for that direction and were soon on "G" street.

Food! One of the restaurants he and I had frequented while living at the beach house was right around the corner. Heero laughed at my celebration, my leaping and crying: "Mama's Kitchen! Mama Mia!"

The miracle here was that we hadn't lost our wallets and our money was dry. I would have been willing to wash dishes stacked a mile high otherwise if there'd been no other form of acceptable payment. I was going to eat and eat my fill_. Now._

Heero and I chose the outdoor seating, considering the condition of our clothes, but the day was turning out to be pretty nice, and the paving stones under our feet were warm. I ordered eggs, bacon, hash with biscuits and gravy, sausages and a tall stack of blueberry pancakes, dripping with butter and hot maple syrup.

Heero had about the same and added two hot chai drinks. "You'll like it."

Chai wasn't coffee. It was spicy, sweet, milky tea, and I liked it so much I felt a new addiction coming on. After my splash in the river, I'd had enough plain water for a while.

"Nice place," I said when I'd filled myself. This was my favorite time in a meal, where I could pick over bits of what was left, line them up, sort the egg and bacon into pairs to get scooped up with a hunk of syrup-laced pancake. Time to just relax and observe Heero at peace, sitting there like he belonged, lingering over his drink like he wanted nothing more than to be with me. I loved this place like I loved him. Loved Heero.

I dawdled. No other word for it. The waitress had cleared away our dishes some time ago and four empty mugs lined up down the center of the table. I wanted but couldn't hold another chai or I'd wash away. I didn't want to disturb our perfect afternoon, but there was unfinished business and my clock in this universe was clicking.

"'Ro, so, here's the thing."

He leaned forward and placed his hand over mine. His was golden brown and stronger than shit, but it looked so gentle warming mine that way. "The thing?"

"We're within a stone's toss of our beach house. My plan is for you to go there and wait for me."

"What about Trowa? You can't have forgotten about him?"

"Not a bit, believe me. But he's not lost on assignment, he's there or soon to be there, once I light a fire under him." I begged a pen off the waitress as she passed. I wasn't sure I heard Heero properly.

"As in _auto-de-fe_?" he asked.

I couldn't tell if he was serious or not and I didn't understand what the hell he meant. "Otto who?" I stole a clean napkin from another table.

"It means 'act of faith' as in a public execution held during the Spanish Inquisition. You're lighting a fire under Trowa is like burning him at the stake, which is an example of auto-de-fe."

Dear God… "Here, just in case." I jotted a note and handed it to Heero.

"I'm to meet you and Trowa at the beach house and stay… pot."

"P-U-T. Stay _put._ Don't leave the minute you get there and don't see us. We will show up. Eventually."

"Eventually?"

"Duo! Heero!"

"Winner and Chang," Heero announced, even though I knew those voices as well as he did.

"They shout in harmony, did you hear that?"

Heero stood. "Une probably sent them when we missed the plane. I'll be back."

"Back?! Where are you-? Oh." Men's room. Guess I couldn't deny him that courtesy. Still. He was wimping out on me here, I just knew it.

"Hey!" I greeted my friends. I felt as if I'd just seen them, which I had, but… not. 'This is the Quatre who likes Fei, but this Fei doesn't know shit', I rehearsed in my head. I had to keep the stories straight.

"You're all right!" Quatre cried out.

"Maxwell! You damned idiot!" Wufei accompanied this insult with a hard yank on my braid. "Why aren't you answering your cellphone?" Wufei shouted.

With Quatre huffing over my shoulder and the Fei-man in my face, I wondered why it was I bothered to have friends, annoying as these two were. "Lost it in a tidal wave like thing," I said. I thought that explained the loss of the phone pretty clearly.

"A what? Oh, Duo!" Quatre wailed.

"When you missed your pickup, and didn't answer your calls, we were sent after you." Wufei poked me in the ribs. "And here you are still vacationing!"

"Not exactly. We had the side of a mountain fall on us and destroy my car- we are okay, thanks for asking- and a river tried to wash us away—"

"Oh! My!" Quatre wrapped himself around my neck, sobbing. "I was so worried and you really _were_ in trouble. I could _feel _it. I could feel a lot of other things too…"

I'll bet…

"Luckily Yuy keeps a tracking beacon in his wallet so we traced you here," Wufei said sounding tired now that all the excitement of finding us had passed. "You appear to be in satisfactory condition now. We have a car and can take you back. You can make the next flight out—"

"No can do. I'm sending Heero on ahead to meet up with Trowa."

"What? Explain!" came the tandem response.

"Listen, I'm sorry I got you worried," I began. "There's something else going on, something you won't believe."

"I knew it!" Quatre said. "I kept telling Wufei I felt it here, in my heart that you were going through a very troubling time."

"More than you probably think. You see, this isn't the only universe I'm living in. There are three total, but only in this one am I Heero's boyfriend." I tried to ignore their gasps of disbelief. Quatre's sniffles were harder to ignore. I never realized how sensitive he was before. "In one other one, I'm with Trowa."

"Dear Lord," Wufei groaned melodramatically.

"And in the one I'm most familiar with, I'm with no one. I'd like to be, but they don't know it and I keep it that way so as not to rock the boat. We're all friends, you see, and I can't pick one over the other."

"Aren't _you_ the deviant?" Wufei said in his sarcastic manner. Only because I was sitting was it possible for him to look down his nose at me. "I'm just saying."

"I don't understand!" Quatre's voice had tightened into a whine, just this side of irritating for me to think him cute.

"Trowa loves me and wants me to help him hunt for a missing Heero in some nasty, bug-ridden jungle—that's one universe, get it? You'd better get that one down, because then there's this one where Heero loves me and, you know—"

"You and he are under orders to locate Trowa, who is MIA—"

"But he's not!" I broke in, knowing that Wufei, regardless of the universe, would rattle off track for miles if I didn't jump in and cut him off at the pass, so to speak. Besides, I owed him an interruption, even if it was in that other universe. _Geesh_. "He's not missing. Do not ask me how I know. He is on his way to meet up with us at-"

Now here is where I had to stop and think. Whose house was the one at the beach? Wufei's? Quat's?

"At… what? Where, Duo?" Quatre looked a little brighter now.

"At the beach house." There.

"Mine?" Quatre asked. "Why?"

"Well, I told him to go there to find Heero."

"When?"

Good question. "Other universe. I told him to meet up at the vacation house. He will."

Wufei sighed. "The vacation house? You know, if that Trowa is anything like this Trowa, he'll go to my cabin in the mountains."

Quatre moaned. "I am so confused."

"I think Quat and I need to take a short walk." I stood and gently shoved Wufei into my chair. "Take a load off and wait here for 'Ro. And don't let him run off."

I walked my distraught buddy down a pebbly path into the small herb garden, intended just for soirées like this, well, mostly like this, probably more romantic. "Everything is going to be all right," I told him. I don't know why I felt so completely at ease about my situation. I should have been panicking worse than him. Screaming like a banshee! But I wasn't. There was no guarantee that I could get out of this, and a lifetime of universe hopping was not very attractive. I didn't even like changing time zones on missions. And yet, here I was assuring my sensitive friend that as crazy as I sounded there would be a happy ending to the day.

"I'm feeling much better, now, Duo. Thank you. I still don't understand all you're saying and I'm not at all certain how I can help you, but, I'll try."

"Thanks."

We walked more, stopping to smell the violets. The roses, he informed me, wouldn't bloom for several months yet. They were pretty damn ugly, prickly stems now. My pleasant ruminations were disturbed when Quatre turned abruptly with a hand over his heart. I thought he was about to pledge his faith in humanity or something, but that wasn't it at all.

"We must go back now. They need us. I feel it."

Okay. So, this Quatre also had a "special gift". I'd heard tell of his "space heart" incident in my universe, but I thought it had been a load of bunk. Maybe not.

Wufei and Heero were waiting for us at the garden entrance. "What'sup?" I asked.

"I believe you," Heero started off, bracing me for the worst.

"That means Wufei doesn't?" I asked.

Heero gave me an apologetic smile and Wufei shook his head.

"We disagree."

Of course you do, 'Fei-bud. No surprise there. This wasn't the dagger-tongued Wufei from Trowa's universe, but he didn't like me very much just the same.

"I think you," Wufei's eyes bored into mine to inflict some pain, "are going nuts, but—"

"I'm going to the beach house to wait," Heero said like a balm to my soul. He made it clear how much he trusted me, believed in me. God, I loved him for that.

"I trust you can do that on your own," Wufei told him. "You certainly don't need my help walking the few miles through town to get there." He then concentrated his beady eyes on me next. "I _could_ accompany you to my cabin, where it's _possible_ that Trowa has gone-improbable, but possible," Wufei said, trying to sound gracious, I suppose. "Not that I believe any of your story, but I would do it to keep you from harm."

"Ah, gee, thanks. However that's not the help I was looking for." Or the droid, heh, heh…

"Should I go too?" Quatre asked.

I remembered from my previous visit to this universe, that this Quat needed grounds to date Wufei; he couldn't just ask the dude, and was willing to sell us his beach house in trade for our help. Clearly, he would see this as our setup to team him with Wufei. I suspected Heero had figured this all out himself, scoped out the situation with Wufei already, and come up with some way to make that happen. He certainly had seemed eager to get that house for us!

Sigh. Love Heero.

So, I shook my head and gave Heero my go-ahead grin and my best "please, tell him no" look.

He did not disappoint. "Tell him your alternative, Chang."

"It is my hope that Duo will accompany Heero to the beach house and remain there. Quatre and I shall take your places and follow Une's directives. We have barely enough time to make the flight if we leave immediately."

"Great. Do that. Write to us from whatever hell-hole Une sends you to. On the other hand, I propose you re-evaluate your plans and find a way up to that cabin and resolve your…issues." I smiled and tipped my non-existent hat their way as a send-off gesture then turned my attention to Heero. I felt road-weary all of a sudden.

"Just in case-" I said. I pulled him into a kiss where I poured my passion into it. A public kiss, but, hey, it wasn't my universe!

I closed my eyes, hoping they'd all go away. All but Heero. Too bad my Olympian-level procrastination skills could not prevent another blitzkrieg bounce through the dimensional wonderland. I didn't want to leave him, but another deep-seated need inside me was demanding to be met. I recognized it as my feelings for Trowa. I kicked at the pebbly walkway and felt my foot hit air.

**TBC**


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four – My love life was never this hot**

"AH!" I lost my balance and fell hands first onto a rocky slope. My fingers scrabbled through the loose rock for a hold, but each time I thought I had a grip of something secure, it would give way and I'd be clutching wildly for another.

"Argh!" I cried out in frustration and fear as I scraped along the rough surface at least body-length's distance downhill. First one hand, then the other clawed then latched onto a narrow shelf of stone that had been too narrow for my feet to catch. I had to find a footing; my hands felt like ice and were going numb.

"Duo!"

Thank _God_! I chanced a glance up and saw Trowa silhouetted against the white sky. "Tro!"

Tiny dots like flakes of ash from an explosion were whirling down upon me. When one touched my hand it melted. Snow! Where fuck was I now?

I struggled for a secure grip and craned my neck, trying to catch what Trowa was shouting at me.

"…rope…"

At least I thought he'd said that. I couldn't risk another look. I was afraid to budge from my spot of relative safety to either sneak another peek at Trowa or lean out and see how far I was going to fall. But… My fingers couldn't grasp the ledge much longer. I hoped Trowa had an idea.

What a way to go out! After surviving the war, all those battles and near escapes, I nearly laughed at imagining the God of Death plummeting down a cliff in an alternative universe. It set me to wondering if I'd die in the other universes as well and made be sad to think of leaving Trowa alone in this one.

And Heero! Heero would never know why I never showed up at the beach house. Would he miss me and die a sorrow-filled, lingering death far, far away in the other universe never knowing what had happened to me? God. That was just too sad to think about. Best avoid dying.

It wasn't just a rope that hit me on the head; it was a climbing harness, like the one Trowa showed me he used while practicing on the circus high wire. I jeopardized my hold for a heart-stopping second, releasing one hand to grab at the leather. When I'd slid it up over the elbow and bent my arm, I had a secure support, and just in time. My fingers looked white with cold. There was no way I was going to climb into the harness properly, but with my next flashy move, I managed to get my other arm hooked inside. It was as good as I could do.

"GO!" I shouted up at the sky.

When my shoulders ached from my weight, I knew my feet were no longer supporting me. I didn't think about the rope. I moved up. I noticed I had on a leather jacket and hiking boots. A hat and gloves would have been nice, but I was grateful I'd thought (if that's how it worked) to put on something more than the t-shirt I'd been wearing with Heero.

The airy flakes I'd seen before were now clumping into big wet blobs that smacked me in the face. Poor Trowa, hauling my ass up this cliff in a snowstorm!

Weariness hit me as soon as I hit the horizontal ground. I was so tired I almost missed seeing Trowa detaching the rope from the block-and-tackle pulley set up. It listed to one side from holding my weight kept upright by a chain wrapped around all that was left of a fence post. The rest of the fence was missing. I guessed it had been dragged off the side of the cliff when the mountain side collapsed under it. Glad to have missed that momentous event.

Unless…

I didn't know where this cabin was. I wasn't sure if in my universe Wufei had such a place, no… it was Quatre's cabin in Trowa's universe… wasn't it? Ugh! It wasn't that complicated, Maxwell—_think!_

But…

If it were so, wouldn't it be one of those strange, extraordinary coincidences if the rockslide that fell on my car in the other universe where Heero and I just barely avoided being smashed was the _same one_ as this?

"C'mon," Trowa urged me off my ass and towards the cabin. "Your leg-?"

Say no more about my leg. I'd twisted it. It hurt, but I could put some weight on it, not that he let me. No, my hero (gulp!) swung me into his arms and carried me across the clearing, past a wood pile, and over the threshold.

What was it with me and comfort-scenarios in my current cross-universe lifestyle? The answer to that would have broken all my illusions, and it was too soon for that.

The heat from the wood fire was such a sudden change from the frosty temperature I'd been enduring, that my nose and fingers tingled. "Whoa! It's sooooo warm in here."

We left our boots by the door and Trowa explained about the primitive conditions. No bath, outdoor loo, water unheated.

"Not what I'd expect from a Quat who insists on spotless pastels and who gets manicures," I commented smoothly, certain I'd nailed down the rustic cabin's provenance.

"Yeah," Trowa said. There was a wry smile emerging from his placidness (something I'd done teased from him, heh, heh). "Who'da thought he'd have the pioneer spirit?"

"Maybe he missed out on all that in his childhood?"

"It's not out of nostalgia," Trowa agreed, the smile curling the corners of his mouth and adding a crinkle at his eyes. _Ni-ice._

"Guilt?" I proposed.

Trowa shook his head not willing to commit to my assessment. "So, I started the propane water heater an hour ago, when I located it. I didn't know about it until I looked around… while waiting… Until then cold water will have to do."

"You haven't been here long then?" I asked. Naturally, he'd been expecting me to show up. I didn't understand how these universes worked, but the best way for me to deal with entering a new one from the last one seemed to be to accept the situation and integrate into it. After a few minutes I knew from experience that I'd feel right at home.

"Not too long." Trowa helped me to the "sink" where I cleaned the dirt from my scraped up hands and off my face.

"What do you want to do?" I asked.

He wasn't volunteering much information, leaving me to prompt him, and, as it turned out, that question triggered his inner tiger. He rounded on me. Evidently, he'd been holding in some anger.

"Duo! What in _hell_ were you thinking? Why did you come up the trail? It's dangerous even in good weather! Where's your car? Where's Heero? I came as you told me to—"

"-Only to save my life." I kissed his lips lightly, testing.

He crushed his lips to mine, tongue prodding, prying, trying to prove he had control over something, I guess. I let him dominate my mouth while hanging on to him for balance and avoiding putting weight on my gimpy knee.

Minutes later he let me breathe. "Why…?" he whispered into my nearest ear.

He'd come this far on nothing but his pure faith in me.

"I was driving with Heero—"

"So you found him? He's okay?"

"Yep, and the slide happened and crushed my car, but we were fine and we walked to the coast and Heero's waiting for us at the beach house. Beach House, 'Tro. Not Cabin."

"You said vacation house. I never'd been to the beach place."

"Well, in _my_ universe you had. Anyway, that explains why you are here."

"And you?" he asked, totally eluding the whole side discussion on alternate universes.

"I took the trail up because the road was blocked by the same rock fall."

Of course.

"Must have happened just after I got here." He let me go and stalked over to the window and pushed aside the heavy insulated curtain. "Shit."

"What?" I asked. I could see nothing but white and guessed what he was thinking, but I knew Trowa was layered; I never could be sure what he had tucked away inside his head. Heero, yes; Trowa, no. It added to his complexity. It made him illusive and interesting and dangerous.

"We can't get out of here until the snow stops."

"Not driving blind down a mountain road?" I teased. "Where's the adventure in pleasant days with safe drives? Tired of living dangerously?" I provoked him a little more. Speaking of living dangerously, it occurred to me that mocking Trowa while holed up in a very small cabin for an unknown amount of time might be awfully like being caged with a hungry tiger and waving a piece of red meat. I got the lethal look when he turned his head and stared, narrow and green, just like he was long and lean.

"My adventure is all cooped up in here with me." His smile showed an edge of teeth.

"Good thing we have supplies," I said, loaded with optimism and grateful Heero and I had eaten like gluttons in case Trowa hadn't had time to shop. "You bring anything with you?"

"_L_uckily this is Quat's place and he stocks it pretty good. I brought…other supplies."

Ah, yes, important ones. Sexy ones.

"I thought I'd eat you, if it came down to that." His predatory smile widened as he snapped his jaws at me and growled.

I wiggled my butt and egged him on a little more. "Just you try."

Oh, there was pain, but not much, and not mine. Hitting the hard wood floors with me on top must have smarted. He howled like he'd broken something to make me go all soft and comforting, and then rolled us over and pinned me to the rug-covered floor nearest the couch. Whatever his plans had been, my throbbing knee forced compromises. Draped over the back of the couch wasn't the worst way to be taken, especially after having received the hottest of blow jobs. All that licking and his leaving little nip marks on my hip bones and the swallow-me-whole talk? Worked for me. When pressed, my quiet Trowa came on as a ferocious lover.

And a kind one. He cleaned me up using some of that precious, warm water, and made us dinner from the larder of instant noodle bowls, canned soups, and tea. To note: Quatre wasn't much of a cook at the cabin, apparently.

"No cell phone," I told Trowa when he asked if mine was working. "The last time I had it I was ordering food with you."

"You were trying to." He wouldn't let me live down the Chang takeout thing. "Doesn't matter. The storm's so bad I can't get satellite either. However long this lasts, we're not going far."

"Cool." I smiled, perfectly serene and ready to wait out the storm rather than go ploughing through who-knew-how-many miles of the freezing, white stuff.

"Why the beach house?" he asked me. Heero hadn't questioned my choice of meeting places, but I hadn't spent as long a stretch of time with him, so maybe we never got around to deep, soul-searching talks.

"No beaches, no oceans on the colonies," I said. "It's so entirely new to me and the sounds and smells…"

I really felt more at home in Heero's universe. I'd like it especially if I could have Trowa there with me…us… all three of us at the beach house.

And I'd choose this universe over mine. In a heartbeat. I could have Heero, I bet. I could have Trowa, already did. I could find happiness. In my universe, I'd be forever yearning for what might be.

No, no, no! I could change that! I'd make it all become real; I convinced myself I could, if I ever made it back there. It would be wild, wouldn't it?

I must have been smiling goofily, because he chuckled and smiled. "Quatre's good for some hunting and fishing. You could do that too, but, now, this visit has had a _lot _better balance."

Ah, Trowa was harking back to his workout stays here with back-to-basics Quatre. So, I did make things better for Trowa. What a discovery! And when I looked up, all I could see were his eyes gazing deeply into mine. "Find what you're looking for?" I asked, unsure if we were about to fool around or embark on some other journey of the heart.

"I love you. My heart…sings for you." He said that.

"Wow." I had to say more. That was too fucking lame a response and he deserved a better one. "I love you, too." I didn't tell him how Little Maxie danced for him. I wasn't an idiot at romantic stuff. I knew that would have diminished what he'd said. I left what I'd said to stand on its own.

"Heero loves you, too." And there it was. Tro' said it and now he was studying me, watching for my reaction.

Not knowing how things worked in this universe, I'd done pretty good thus far, but this took me so far off-guard my stomach did a loop-de-loop. This could be a bombshell he was laying on me for the first time, or old news we'd rehashed before. I didn't know and he wasn't giving me any clues how to act.

So, I winged it. "He told me." Well, he had in his universe!

Trowa's eyes widened with surprise. Oops! "He did? He finally did? Fuck. I was so sure he wouldn't be able to."

"Maybe Wufei lit a firecracker under him?" I chanced. Why not? Didn't the Chinese invent the things?

Trowa gave me _a look_. "Weak joke, Maxwell."

I gave him a carefree shrug. "However, that would explain us all meeting at the beach house. You know, to work things out between us."

This made sense to me even though the idea had just popped into my head. I mean, really. There were complications. Heero and Trowa were AWOL from their missions in their reverse-respective universes, and the director was under the impression that they were in danger. There would be consequences. Those were serious offenses in my universe!

Thinking about my universe… What the hell were we all doing back there? What was going on in my universe while I was sorting out my life in these alternate ones? Not only did I find it hard to genuinely _care_ about my universe, I didn't want to return to it, that life.

"Could be. What do you want?" he asked.

His question drew me out of my head again, which was good because my head was being to scare me and I had no answers for my questions. I did for his. "What you want."

He huffed an exasperated little huff. "Duo-."

Well, I was tired of delicately dancing around the most important questions. I knew how Heero and Trowa felt about me (at last), but nothing would come of my dream (now that I had established in MY mind that the three of us should be together), it would remain a fantasy forever, if Trowa and Heero didn't _want_ each other as well. I had absolutely no evidence to support that they felt anything toward one another, beyond than friendship. But… I had two more universes to blow the deal in, right?

So, given all that baggage, I simply blurted out, "Are you in love with Heero? Um… that's my point."

"How would you feel about it if I was?"

I deserved that, frankly. Oooh, you tricky man, you, making me carry the load here. "I'd be fine with it. It would solve all the problems, assuming Heero loves you, too, of course. And I'm sure he does. How could he not? If he can fall for me, he certainly is able to see how much more attractive, athletic, caring- how everything that you are exceeds everything I am. Of course he's crazy for you."

Anyway, I'd convinced myself of the truth of it. If I said it, it was true. It didn't occur to me, or at least weigh on me, that my boyfriend wouldn't know this unless he'd been fooling around behind my back, but my normally acute common sense had long ago vaporized in the universe swapping.

"You think I'm… all that? And you don't mind…sharing?"

"Mind? Hell, no! It's fucking spectacular. My every dream come true in two-fold!" _Not that you alone aren't great for me. _God, what an omission… an assumption to make! And yet, I took the chance. It was as if this wasn't real…

"Of course." Trowa was halfway to a smile. "He does, and… I do."

Heero does and Trowa does and I do, too. Cool. Trifecta complete, at least, in this universe. "Then that's settled."

Trowa threw back his head and laughed, loudly and for a long time. Tears flooded his eyes and he ended up coughing and wheezing on the floor. I sat and watched. Seeing Trowa completely lost in the throes of emotion? Once in a lifetime, so far.

"Only you," he choked out eventually when he could breathe.

"Only me what?"

"Only you could think things are settled."

"Well, they will be once we haul ass to the beach and talk it over with Heero. Clearly he's come to the same conclusion—"

"That being-?"

"That we three belong together."

"Together," he repeated. "Yeah."

After that, we played card games and talked about ourselves. There was no going outside and very little to entertain ourselves doing. There is a limit to the number of times you can have sex in a row, and we found it.

Three. Numero quarto was a fail. That doesn't reflect back onto Quat, either.

"Remember when I forgot everything?" Trowa asked.

"Yeah, I'm surprised that _you_ do."

"Funny."

I learned about his mercenary years that led him to becoming a Gundam mechanic, and about his stints working for a circus.

His life had been hard and sad. "It's a wonder you found a way to love," I whispered.

"I watched you."

_That was so sweet it hurt._ "Me?"

"How you formed easy friendships and how you and Heero fell in love."

"You _knew_?" If only this was true in MY universe, how easy things would be.

What if they were?

"Yeah," Trowa said. "Heero didn't know it, but I did. Actually, Quatre did and told me. And that's how I knew I'd fallen in love with you… and him… both. But you… were more accessible."

"I was easy?"

"Easier. More approachable. And I could see myself happy with you alone if Heero never felt the same way."

That was nice. I won Trowa first! In Heero's world, we'd never delved into the nitty gritty of our getting together, but he'd chosen me. I was the _man_!

"Too bad Quat and 'Fei can't find someone," I said. I was _the man_ so I could accommodate everyone's wellbeing. Heh, heh. "I'd like them to be happy, too." _Why not?_

"Once we make it known…" Trowa paused, then reworded his thoughts, "I think hiding our feelings hasn't encouraged them to… come out."

"They know about us?" I didn't know how open we were in this universe.

"Yeah," he said as if I should know that, but we keep our relationship low-key, and they see Heero's being left out and don't want him alone, I think. "

"Huh." I hadn't thought of Wufei's reticence to pursue a lover- and likewise Quatre's in the other universe- as having anything to do with how the three of us worked out our relationships. "I think it's something else, though."

"Double huh. Might be more complex. I think they're waiting for us."

And Trowa, it seemed, had figured it all out. And now me. Heero maybe as well. Well. There was nothing left but to give a three-way a chance!

Three days, we stayed. Magically, the food supplies held out and so had the propane. The day we set out for the coast, I just knew I wasn't going to do it in Trowa's car. That would have been just too fucking easy, so I took precautions.

"Um, Tro'? Just in case… here."

"What's this, your will?"

"You jest, but it's kinda like that. Just read it and do what I say. It's in case we get separated."

He took the note I'd folded into a crane, origami-style, like Trowa had been trying to teach me. "Okay, but that's not going to happen."

Right.

**TBC**


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five – When the pain returned I knew I was back**

* * *

From the pain like a line of fire up and down my leg I knew I was in my own universe again. The insight came just like that. In no other world had I felt this much pain. I'd always been cushioned by an overall feeling of well-being, my injuries minor and forgettable. I felt stings and aches and I couldn't put all my weight on my left knee.

I scrambled to my feet by the side of a road, a highway by the size of it, getting my bearings. There was the damp fog, real fog blowing in wisps over the treetops and settling down, smelling of salt and something tangy like dead fish. So, I was at the coast. _My_ coast or near to it. I took a step onto the pavement as a car swept past, then backed up.

That would be funny. Headlines: Gundam pilot turned Preventers agent killed by family on holiday while crossing the highway in the dead of night. It wasn't the dead of night, though. The sun had set only a short time ago. I'd been climbing out of the forest using the afterglow to see by. Now it was dark. Nothing magical about it. No stars blinking. No Trowa or Heero. Just nasty, clammy fog.

Which way to turn? I stood there wishing I had a coin to toss, when I noticed lights from a van slowing down and pulling off the road. It was a late model, check that, _ancient_ thing with a rainbow painted on the side and untold numbers of figures and patterns inked over every square inch of what I could make out. The passenger window rolled down part way, and then a hand pushed it the rest of the way into the lower frame.

"Hey, man, wanna lift?" The man's voice sounded breathy and not much older than me.

"Um…" I wasn't sure.

Next thing I knew a wiry dude with a rope of hair like mine but parted in the middle, was supporting one arm and helping me into the van. "You sure been traveling the rough road," he said.

I had. I looked over my clothes as he started the recalcitrant engine. I was wearing very dirty, heavy-duty cargos, ripped at one knee, a fitted leather flight jacket over a heavy shirt of some kind. Durable, black boots. Very paramilitary. It was a wonder he stopped. I wouldn't have.

I didn't even recognize my braid at first. Part mud part tangle of fuzz.

"Yeah, got separated from my buds and got lost." It was a reasonable story I'd thought up quickly. Go me.

"Oh," the nice guy grinned knowingly. "One of those survivalist clubs, eh? We get a mess of them coming through. One dude always finds trouble."

"You're Trouble?" I asked, joking.

He took it that way and smiled. "I'm Mitch."

"Duo. Thanks for stopping."

We talked about where we were. Amazingly, we were only a few dozen miles north of the beach house! He said he liked company for his coastal drives and I confessed I hadn't any way to repay him. "No keys, cards, money… not even my phone," I noted.

"Don't worry. Glad to be helping a fellow traveler in the universe."

"_The_ universe? Yeah. Meet the multiverse traveler, Duo Maxwell."

"Cool."

That was it. That was all the man said, chill as a frozen margarita. I wondered if I should worry that he accepted what I'd said as fact? Or maybe he thought I was drugged out? Or joking?

The road wound, hugging the ins and outs of the rocky coastline, and the fog came and went, generally making it a slow ride. Conversation lulled as Mitch concentrated wholly on keeping to his side of the road and avoiding a dive off the cliff edge. Chugging along at 25 mph was probably all the old van could manage anyway. Then I spotted the familiar landmarks.

"Looks like my stop's coming up."

"That gate?"

"Yep. You can keep the motor running and I'll just hop out."

I landed face down on the gravel. "Fucking knee!"

Mitch was out in a snap, helping me to a stand. "Maybe I should getcher to the door. Your buddies might not be in."

I couldn't talk him out of it.

"You can pay me back by letting me see you get in safe. Ease my mind knowing I didn't leave a dude in a ditch by the side of the road."

I punched in the keycode by rote, opening the gate, and we hobbled along the drive. Mitch was either stunned by the nice look of the place or conscious of the fact that I wasn't talking, and so he just supported me in silence. This was good, because I had just dipped into a dark mood, killing my friendly banter. All the uncertainty I _hadn't_ had in the other two universes I felt now in spades. A regular piling-on of doubt weighted me down like a load of lead pipes across my shoulders (something I had shouldered about while working the scrapyard on L2 just after the war, so I knew what I was talking about). It didn't help that my leg throbbed and my entire body was starting to make its various complaints known.

But the doubt was definitely the worst, as was the suspicion that no one would be at the house when I knocked. When I opened the gate, it set off a signal inside. I wasn't sneaking up on anyone. Any of my friends would be curious who was approaching and be on the lookout.

And yet, no one was dashing out the door to survey the situation.

I had no reason to actually believe Heero or Trowa, much less _both _men, would be there. Why should they? We'd never all partied together here, so it couldn't be an important place for either of them. What had I been thinking all this time? What a hair-brained scheme! Crazy-ass fantasyland. It hadn't the remotest chance of coming true.

I had set myself up for complete and utter disappointment.

The porch light flashed on and the screen door slammed open. I was spotted, and I heard voices. "—There's someone…no, _two_ people!"

Silhouetted at the door were Heero and Trowa! Both had actually, really and truly made it to the beach house!

"Duo!"

Mitch chuckled softly. "Looks like you were right."

I felt light as a feather as I rushed through cursory introductions. Heero stared at me, his rigid arms looking ready to grab my unsteady body if I fell over, and Trowa stared at Mitch, ready to grab him, was my guess, to throttle his neck if he meant harm. "So, I owe Mitch here for scraping my ass off the road and bringing me here…"

I caught a bit of what Trowa muttered "—take care of it… owe you a lot… really appreciate…—" as he and Mitch trundled off.

"Bye! Thanks again!" I shouted after them.

"Sail on sailor!" Mitch said, laughingly back at me. "No, I don't need no money… well…okay… On my way from Orangehurst, heading into Minterville…"

I figured Trowa was rewarding him generously, plus covering for some gas and mileage, but then I had Heero and all his attention riveted to my person distracting me from my calculations.

"Your leg is injured."

"Yeah."

He was at my side pulling my right arm over his shoulders and wrapping his left around my waist, easing the weight onto him. "Can you walk?" he asked, and I knew he meant if I could get up the steps.

"Yeah."

"Hn." He doubted me!

The house looked so good. Made me feel protected, I thought, patting the porch railing as Heero mostly hauled me up the five steps to the door.

He stared at me gravely for a moment, as if he were reappraising something. Then he turned away, looking puzzled. Not as confused as me, probably. Trowa was back.

I started making excuses, as much as to cover up for all the expectant silence as to fill the gaping hole of time that had passed since I'd last seen them in my universe. "I don't ordinarily take rides from strangers, but I was a little disoriented. I mean as testament to my condition—"

Trowa and Heero were on me in a split second, the trigger word being 'condition', and half carried me into the bathroom.

"I'll draw water," Trowa said.

Heero sat me on the toilet seat and removed my boots and socks. "Broken bones?" he asked me.

"No. Scratches. Knee hurt, obviously. Ribs!" I screeched when I felt investigating fingers encounter some badly bruised ones. Gauze wound around my midsection—so I'd been treated at one time. My hands were covered with cuts and scrapes which looked fresh.

Trowa had my jacket and shirt off before I finished my list and started inspecting my back. "Shrapnel wounds. Nothing major."

"Hn." Heero had his hands up and down my sides, removing the bandaging. "Similar assessment."

I chuckled. "Ticklish. God, I'm being team-stripped here." I felt the heat rise past my neck seconds later. I hadn't meant to say that aloud. I never would have said that to them in jest, but it must have come from being around their alternative personas that I'd let down my reserves.

Frankly, I was too damned exhausted to analyze the ins and outs of this complicated game. They could accept me or refuse me, but I was so thrilled to see them and relieved know that they both met me at the beach house that I was willing to let that be enough to carry me away. I was just plain ready to give up fighting my own thoughts.

Trowa held my braid, a strange thing, I thought. He'd never deliberately touched it before. When I saw a stick and leaves fall into the trash can, I realized he was clearing away trash it had trapped.

"Thanks," I said.

There wasn't anything _to_ fight going on. Heero was as tender as I knew he could be and Trowa as caring.

"Stand," Heero ordered, gradually adding his power to my feebleness and lifting me up for Trowa to remove my pants and shorts.

"I can do this part."

Trowa laughed quietly.

I wondered what was so fucking funny, but when his hazel eyes softened and he gave me a tiny, secret smile, the defensive fire just fizzled out of me.

"Water's ready," Trowa said, "I added shampoo to the water."

That explained the mounds of bubbles. "Kinda girly, don'tcha think?" Not that I let some perfumey foam stop me from stepping into the water.

"I'm adding more hot water," Trowa told me.

"It's pretty hot already." I gave him a quick smile and he returned it. No hesitation at all. No checking over his shoulder to see Heero's reaction. And I was positive that he got what I meant.

"Idiot," Heero muttered, but he wore a tantalizing smile, so _he_ must have understood what had been alluded to, and didn't mind.

Either that or they were both humoring the poor, battered agent.

We let the water soak off most of the dirt. I think they were afraid to touch me for as simple a reason as they didn't know which ribs were bruised or cuts stung the most and didn't want to add to my misery. Oh, yeah, and they'd never before touched my naked body, my _mature_ naked body—in this universe. Hard to remember that.

I lost track of time for a while. With my eyes closed I couldn't see who unbraided my hair—I guessed Trowa because he had the signs of one with a closet hair fetish—and I think I was ready to sign over my soul to the one who washed it—I guess they both took turns. It was a mass of burrs and dust, turning the water muddy. I didn't let that limit my soaking stint, but Heero tried to, retreating to a work-around, draining and refilling the tub twice before declaring "shower-off time."

Heero's body went still as he checked a message on his phone. I hadn't heard it buzz. "Dry off, but don't dress," he told me, adding quickly before I could put up any fuss, "Your official medical examination team has arrived."

Damn! "I was hoping you were suggesting something else," I muttered before remembering which universe I was currently living in. My inhibitions had gone for shit. In this universe, remember, I was the only one of us who desired the others. Only _I_ felt anything more than friendship for my friends.

But no one demanded that I explain what I'd meant. No pressure. Just kindness and efficient attention. I wasn't going to question this turn of fate. If they wanted to kill me with kindness, I'd let them.

"I'll get the door," Heero said, delivering me unto Trowa's sole care. Could his parting look have been touched by a little regret to part with me- possibly? Or was it a "sorry to leave you with the head-case" kind of look?

Trowa handed me a towel. "Use this and I'll get your hair out of the way."

While I wiped down—a ginger pat down over most my sore torso- he tended to my hair, raking some of the tangles out and then wrapping it in a bath sheet big enough for Deathscythe to have used it for a dishcloth.

Lastly, he pulled a worn robe from the door hook. "Your attire."

"Thanks." I was grateful to be covered again. "I was feeling under dressed."

He just smiled ambiguously and pushed open the door. "You first."

I met the medic team on the couch. I answered questions, getting my name correct but failing the date ones for sure, although I think I had the year right and from the weather figured I couldn't be too far off on the season. Blood was drawn, lacerations treated and bound, contusions salved, ribs tape y, knee wrapped in elastic tape, and advice dispensed: "You should come in and get that x-rayed", "take these for pain every four hours", "this course of antibiotics is only precautionary until we get back the test results." They could only tell me what I already knew or deduced on my own.

"No serious injuries, but it's suggested that you have been drugged, so take it easy until we know more."

"Suggested by whom?" Heero asked.

"In the course of reviewing the evidence collected, the director put forward that idea to Dr. Po. We were told to look for any obvious signs of drugging. Agent Maxwell is unable to account for… a lengthy period of time."

Not true, but an account of my last few days, _weeks_, transporting about in my multi-universe trifecta, would probably be the kind of confirmation they'd be on the lookout for, if they were searching for delusional. I couldn't bring myself to care about much, but I didn't want my sanity held up to ridicule with the two men I most… admired… having to hear it and be put on the defensive. I didn't want to share my very personal feelings for the pair with strangers, either. I wasn't even sure I was ready to tell 'Ro and 'Tro about my feelings and dreams for us.

Someone showed the medics out and then we draped ourselves over the couch. With a tug here, a grab and lift there, I was rearranged partly in Trowa's lap and partly strewed over Heero. My head rested against Trowa's chest; I could hear the steady beat of his heart. One of my noodle-limp arms lay over his thigh and I could see the rest of his leg continue along the back cushions, before disappearing behind Heero's back. Trowa's other leg rested half on the coffee table. His hands rubbed at my shoulders, neck and, weirdly, my braid. He'd never seemed interested it my hair before and now Trowa wasn't letting it out of his possession. Yep, fetish.

My legs bent over Heero's lap and he was massaging my feet. That was delicious. It made me moan with pleasure—the whole thing. I may have been too exhausted to lift a finger, but there was Little Maxie rising to attention. I felt a blush wash over me, but there wasn't a thing I could do about it. No one could see anyway. There was nothing but cast shadows in the evening light of candles one of them had thought to light and set around the room.

Seeing their darker outlines, I relaxed from a watch I had not realized I was keeping. Safe at last! Heero and Trowa both. Together they had the power to keep me safe. Most of my weariness dropped away. It had been a smoke screen my mind had put up to disguise how terrified I'd been that I'd never get free and get my chance to see them again.

Free? But free from what? The universe hopping? Yeah, but things the medics had said made it sound as if I'd been captured and something else was at play here. Concentrating was difficult.

It was hard to imagine a time when I'd been so afraid of them discovering how I felt about them, and now that seemed like nothing in light of all I'd gone through to reach them.

And I had gone through a lot. I felt I had. In real life. I wanted to thank them for not asking me questions, but couldn't bring myself to disturb the calm.

For a blessedly long time, no sounds could be heard but the crash of the waves and the low hoo-ooo of a distant foghorn.

"I hear a car," Trowa said.

Indeed, a rude engine roared up the drive. Brakes squealed.

"Chang's," Heero said. "Quatre's purrs like his pet."

"It does, doesn't it?" I hadn't drawn that parallel before. Quat had a cat- a big, fat, pampered lozenge of white fur.

"The dragon roars, the cat purrs," Trowa said, drolly, making us all smile.

Doors opened and slammed shut and then footfalls, running across the gravel, thumping on the wooden porch. I heard familiar voices, muted by the thick door.

"Wait! Maybe we shouldn't just interrupt." Quatre, how kind of him to sense my growing lust—and I knew he could. The Quatre in the other universes, one at least, had let me in on how much he could sense. Underhanded little empath.

"Nonsense!" -and for Wufei not to care at all. Insensitive little prick.

And I considered them both to be my friends.

The two of them talked in low voices. I continued to sit and half-listen in a daze. After what seemed an age, came the timid knock.

"Come in!" Heero shouted. No one moved to get the door. "It's not locked."

Apparently, one of my housemates had called Wufei and Quatre, because they came in carrying provisions. _Awww._

I rubbed my damp eyes saying I didn't know what had come over me. I was greeted with smiles and laughter from everyone.

"Hey, I'm okay. Got checked out and there didn't seem to be much wrong with me."

"Oh, Duo!" Quatre nearly crushed me to him, but Heero's hand blocked his path.

"Ribs," Trowa said, succinctly.

"Freshly wrapped," I told them. "The bandage is impressive, too. I'm not saying there is zebra duct tape involved, but I'm not saying there _isn't_."

"Ha! Duo, you are one in a million," Quatre declared.

"Rarer than that," Wufei put in, I think, to further embarrass me.

Still, the mood lifted significantly and the refreshing effect of the two new additions added to the safe feeling I'd been savoring, having both Heero and Trowa near me, and revived us all. Everyone, but me, bustled about, seeing to tea, blankets to wrap me in, cushions to prop me up, dishware, and containers of steaming food.

They say sleep cures, well, so do tub soaks and plentiful food and good friends.

Not that I didn't want to know what had been going on in my universe, and a lot had, since I'd been "gone", but no one addressed it directly, like an ogre amongst us, occupying space no one wanted to contest. Like the hypothetical elephant in the room, but much, much less predictable. Certainly less conventional. If we didn't mention it directly, it didn't hurt us. One aspect of the ogre I deemed needed remarking upon - for argument's sake let's say his two best friends making moony eyes at one another when they didn't think I was looking.

"Quat."

"Yes, Duo?"

"What's with you and 'Fei-man here?" See? That was me being direct. I could be in spite of my _condition_ and even if they wanted to dance around the ogre.

"Oh, um…"

This would have continued for some time if Trowa hadn't kicked him, I'm pretty sure.

"We are dating," Quatre coughed up.

"Great!" I knew it would happen, of course. "I had hoped you'd take the hints." Hints made in other universes, but still…

"I don't know what hints you are referring to," Wufei said, "With our combined ancient lineage and family obligations to negotiate—"

"You've been obsessing over one another for ages," I interrupted a lengthy opining session from one of its masters, "and I can't imagine your combined inheritances can't buy off anyone's goodwill who aims to voice an objection."

"But-!"

"I'm happy for you both. I really am. And being happy and feeling like you have it all—you do don't you?- does that mean you'll sell me this house, whomever it is that owns it, 'cause I've become very attached to it?"

"Um, you need to talk to Heero and Trowa about that," Quatre said. "They own it."

"Oh." Cool, I thought. Different. A twist in the continuum? I could go with that.

"We bought it while you were… gone." Heero said with hesitation.

_Gone._ Yeah, so to speak. The ogre stretched out his legs, securing a little more space. Heero must have come close to a territorial dispute, treading where nobody was supposed to go.

"Good choice." I beamed my approval. Because I was back to giving the ogre wide berth, I think everyone breathed easier. Besides, we were talking about my dream house, what could be a better? Everyone was looking at me, and, I swear, I didn't know what to say that wouldn't sound _a bit nuts_. And that would disturb the Big Ugly Secret ogre. "Is it my turn to tell a story?"

"You don't have to explain anything," Trowa said, I suspected that he was trying to protect me, because he was sitting closest to the Big Ugly Secret and was feeling hemmed in.

"But you can, if you want," Wufei urged in his impatient way. Okay, so he and he alone seemed ready to fight the ogre. Maybe it was a dragon's instinctual reflex?

"He just got back," Heero said. "He needs…"

To adapt? To rest? To what? I didn't like seeing Heero and Trowa cowed by the Big Ugly. That meant kicking ass.

"I think I need to talk," I said. "But first, tell me, what do you think I'm back from?"

Apparently, and this is the joke, I had been the missing one and they had all been looking for me for some time. I, at least, thought it was funny.

A mission gone kablooey, a trap with me the bait, even Quatre got pressed into service to hunt for me. On the plus side, he'd been teamed with Wufei, which led to bringing the couple together.

It didn't explain shit.

"Okay, well, that's your point of view, I get that, but I have an entirely different take on everything." That got me everyone's undivided attention.

"I feel I've explained this umpteen times already." In different universes I had. I felt what I felt.

"Practice makes perfect," Heero intoned.

"Maybe." I'd give one of the loves of my life some credit, if only for having a sense of humor. "You see, I told you at different times and places… and like… parallel universes, or something."

"Alternative realities?" Quatre asked like it was a new color for my shirt, a shade of blue I'd never considered.

"I guess. They were a lot like this one but with differences. In each one, I was trying to get, um…" This is where things broke down. I didn't know where Heero, Trowa, and I stood anymore. I'd become confused, merging their different personas in their varying realities with my own in this one. I wanted to blame the ogre for causing that, but he was shrinking into the crack in the couch cushions.

"Trying to get back here," Heero said like it all made sense. "I got your note."

_Note?_

He held up a scrap of paper, a napkin, with my scribbled handwriting. "I found this in my pocket a week ago telling me to come to the…beach house and wait for you. I didn't understand the stipulation that I remain 'pot', though."

"Put! That's a 'u'! Some things about you don't change no matter which universe you're in," I grumbled.

Quatre cleared his throat. Wufei sniffed.

"I got one, too." Trowa pulled a folded paper crane from his back pocket. "It said 'vacation house', but I didn't have one."

"We searched the mountain resort," Wufei said. "I remembered one of the safe houses we'd used that was on the property and Quatre still owned."

"But Heero was positive it had to be one of the beach houses we'd visited," Quatre said.

"It was," Heero stated. "This one. Duo came here, which proves it." And damn, if he didn't look pleased with himself for making the correct deduction.

"It was a favorite," Trowa admitted.

"And I wanted to sell it," Quatre chimed in, "and Trowa called and he and Heero said they'd match any offer, which they couldn't possibly, but…"

"I pitched in," Wufei said, matter-of-factly. "Nice place. You can buy me out, if you want. They made me agree."

"I might," I said.

"Listen, I'd have given it to you if I'd believed it would ensure Duo's appearance!" Quatre said.

"You heard him! It's a gift! Thanks, Quat!" I cheered, knowing Quatre hadn't meant it, not really, not completely. "Just give us a deal, okay?"

He nodded, but looked about to cry. "Of course!" He composed himself with a brush of a sleeve across his eyes. "Anyone can see that this house represents a very special place in your heart, a safe retreat… maybe… somewhere you have felt free to be yourself rather than a terrorist or agent."

Like how I felt being with Heero and Trowa. Safe, loved, and belonging.

Wufei began a lecture series. Giving him the benefit of the doubt, let's just say he was attempting to bridge the awkward moment. "You know, an alternative reality is a hypothetical self-contained separate reality coexisting with our own."

"I traversed _two_ other ones a lot like this one," I said, taking perverse pleasure in watching the ogre's legs disappear into the couch.

"Multiverses, then," Wufei went on, completely unflappable. "And, alternative realities can simply be variants of our own."

"That's what I'm talking about," I said. Nice to be understood. The others might have been exchanging glances amounting to "be nice to the crazy guy", but for the time being everyone pretended to take me seriously.

"I gave you the instructions to come here, when I was in your universe," I explained to Heero. "After surviving a flood and hiking to Carver," that was the seaside town closest to this house, "I wrote that note on napkin…at Mama's Kitchen… in case I changed universes again, which I did. And I did the same for you," I told Trowa, next. "We'd been snowed-in at the mountain cabin—"

"Ah ha! I told you he'd been there!" Wufei crowed in the background.

"- and you showed me how to fold those Japanese cranes."

"I taught him," Heero cut in.

"He learned well," I said, just to stroke his ego a little and gain a tiny smile. "I wrote _that_ note on a crane, the best one, just as we were about to leave."

"In alternative universes," Wufei said.

"Yeah. That was Trowa's universe, where… um… I was with him." That was vague enough to make the ogre's arms and legs pop back out again.

"That does explain how those notes came to be on you," Quatre said, pleased as punch. "We'd been trying to sort that out."

"Glad I could help." I rested my head on a pillow and closed my eyes. I wanted to put the Big Ugly Secret to bed for good. "I was with you, Heero or Trowa, a different one in the different universes, but things weren't right… things never felt really complete. And you both came up missing in action, a different one in each universe, and Une kept trying to send me and the one not missing on wild goose chases. And I _knew_ I'd find you both here, that was the cool thing. And I was right."

"Yes, you were." Quatre patted my hand.

"Confusing at times, I suppose," Wufei acknowledged.

"Yeah, and yet I felt good and generally happy." It was totally true.

"I can only imagine," Quatre said.

I opened my eyes and looked him straight in the eye. "I think you can tell how I feel exactly down to the fucking _who_." I dared him to deny his 'space heart' thing, which I'd had first-hand experience with in the other universes.

He didn't. He blinked and looked surprised and took a flying leap over his denial and the dwindling ogre. "I hope you feel at home here. It's yours now."

When I only smiled in response, Quatre got the hint. "I can tell you're tired. We should go, Wufei. Call us later?" He posed the last as a question to Heero or Trowa, not me.

**TBC**


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six – the afterword- And made my dreams come true**

* * *

When they left, a part of the Big Ugly thing left with them, but only a part, the big greasy ogrely overnight bag went. The ogre himself was still hanging around, a mute and condensed malignancy.

This was my place, my new home, and if I wanted my dreams to come true, it was my chance to go for broke. If Heero and Trowa didn't feel about me as I hoped, well, I could claim temporary insanity, with medical backup, and we could all still be friends.

Which would suck.

But, that would be better than them being insulted and never speaking to me again.

So, I kicked the ogre squarely in the balls.

"So, when I said 'with'," I began.

"You don't have to do this now," Heero tried to stop me.

"Yeah, I do. Just bear with, okay?"

Trowa and Heero nodded in tandem. Cute.

"I meant that in one universe I was your boyfriend, Heero, and in the other… I was yours."

Trowa smiled.

"I really like you both. I have for a while." There I said that. Go you ugly ogre you, and take your ugly secrets with you!

"You never said," Heero whispered.

"I didn't want to break up our friendship by showing favoritism, and I was scared to let you know how I felt. You can see why?!"

"We figured that out." Trowa raked his bangs out of his eyes. "We compared notes."

"Quatre told us to," Heero said. "He said we had to be unified, our thinking together for when we got you back."

Had they been expecting me returned a mental mess, and tried to prepare for that? Whatever they'd been told about my whereabouts, they'd imagined some pretty terrible things from the haunted look in their eyes.

"It didn't happen, whatever you are thinking now," I assured them. "I'll tell you, it wasn't easy, universe trekking, but it was nice."

Trowa was smiling dreamy-like. Was he coddling me? And for a nasty second I wondered if this was my REAL universe and not a dream-come-true one. No. This was reality. I had to believe it.

"Hey! It was! It really did happen. I can give you details right down to the minute… in both cases! I didn't imagine what happened!" I insisted.

"You may have had a head injury and in your coma, your mind split and created the parallel realities. Both were practically perfect, yet incomplete." Heero sat back after getting his word in.

"Oh, boy, you are so wrong about the head thing, but so very, very right about that perfect part," I said, laughing. "I had everything I'd ever wanted: a loving boyfriend, a great life together…"

"In all the alternate universes?"

"In _both_, yeah, but different boyfriends and an irritating feeling that things were not quite right, something missing. _And_ I felt guilty about that, too. You'd be doing everything to make me happy- um— they would… the, um, boyfriends." I couldn't meet either of their eyes at that moment. Not if I was going to get though what I had to say.

"And you found something lacking all the time?" Trowa asked.

"Yeah. So stupid, I know. I mean, I'd have everything anyone could want and yet be needy enough to crave for more. And I was aware of living two lives in which my, um, I was having really great sex with different partners."

"That wasn't perfect?" Trowa asked.

"Not torn in two parts, not in the long run."

"No ultimate happiness," Heero concluded.

"That might scare me to death." Trowa looked haunted for a second.

"Yeah. Two boyfriends at the same time? Crazy, huh? What idiot would agree to sharing like that? No," I stopped them both from trying to make me feel better—they couldn't possibly convince me I was wrong. "Let me finish this. See, in both cases, I would find the missing man and for an instant feel this overwhelming sensation of completeness and then—"

"You'd be hurled into the other universe." Heero touched his forehead to mine. "It's a miracle your sanity survived."

"If you think I'm sane!"

"Being pulled from one situation to another, trying to make sense of what you'd learned, felt, and where you were, simultaneously aware of the other realities, remembering the previous events? How you kept it all straight, kept your balance, I don't know, unless you were very, very rational." Trowa shook his head and placed his hand over my braid on my lap. "You amaze me."

I needed them both and here they were and they were there with me, caring for me. It wasn't until I arrived at the house with the two of them that I started to feel right again, that everything was in its proper place. No ugly secrets remained. The ogre was gone.

But.

I so desperately wanted Heero and Trowa to _love_ me.

"What's wrong, Duo?"

"Duo!" Trowa cried out. "It's okay. We understand."

"You can't." I was fighting back weepy tears, of all things.

"I think I might, but…" Trowa searched my face for some answer. "You don't think we're jealous of one another, do you?"

Jealous? The word seemed to take all the heat out of me. I felt as cold as the river water I'd nearly drowned in or the snow I'd stomped through. An instant later, the heat flamed back, tenfold. My face was burning. "No. I need… I need… I—"

First, Heero kissed me.

"We know," Trowa said. "We were there in our universes with you all the time." And then he kissed me too.

(o) Afterword

Excerpted from a Preventers investigation report:

_Agent Maxwell had been missing in action for six months. He had extracted himself from an underground laboratory and on his own returned to a safe house. By week's end, it was determined that Agent Maxwell had been held in captivity by a small, fringe offshoot of the old OZ organization, one which had been under recent investigation by Preventers, codename: WILL. _

_The renegade group's plan had been to convert a high-level Preventers agent to their cause and use that agent to draw in other Preventers agents (note: supposition. Motivation still under investigation). High concentrations of several psychedelic, illusion-enhancing, and immobilizing drugs had been detected in Maxwell's blood stream; clearly brought into play to alter his state of mind. After his initial capture (method under continuing investigation) and transport to a site in a remote sector of north-western Sanc (location classified and transport vehicle detained for thorough examination), Maxwell received psychiatric treatments (brainwashing and chemical injections) for four months. _

_And then he escaped._

_It is estimated that he spent the next two months alone, surviving out of doors with no equipment or technology in the worst winter on record in the kingdom of Sanc, including a flood, avalanche, and blizzard. It has not been established how two hand-written communiques were delivered to agents Yuy and Barton. A man identified only as "Mitch" (whereabouts unknown) may have been responsible_.

That was the official statement, but I knew better, and so did Trowa and Heero. We were on leave, living together, the three of us, at our beach house. And all was right in the multiverse. Both my boyfriends had moved from their apartments, which I have to say looked nothing like I'd imagined or seen in the alternate universes—no ticking clocks, more littered, and Heero slept on a futon.

And I was glad to have seen the last of the Big Ugly Secret ogre. He didn't belong in my dream house; he was too big and ugly, as the name implied. He didn't fit in any universe. Or Multiverse. And I would know. So. So long Big Ugly. Make room for the trifecta of love, heh, heh…

"Last day of our vacation," Trowa said. "What should we do?"

"Shopping," I announced. "I'm cooking dinner, and don't act like you're not impressed."

"You don't have to," Heero said. "We can go out."

"No, we can't. We have become too reliant on ordering take-out or coming home too tired to cook a decent meal. Frozen pizza and I have spent way too much time together. I need to see other people, er, food stuffs."

"You'd better modify that," Trowa said, his tone dangerous and low, "or I might get the idea that you're tiring of us already."

"Heh, heh… like two hot guys can't satisfy me? God, lock me up if that ever comes to pass."

Heero closed the refrigerator door. "There's leftovers I could turn into dinner."

"Not giving up on me and my cooking skills, are you?"

"I don't want them to go to waste," Heero said.

"Fix what you will and store them for later and let Duo… do his thing," Trowa advised.

Heero frowned at that. "Technically that would make leftover-leftovers."

"Yeah, but we will look the other way on that one." Trowa caught me in a one-armed hug and Heero with the other hand, reeling us both into his chest. "We want everyone happy. If you both want to cook and I don't have to then it's perfect."

My overwhelming feeling of rightness wobbled just a little. "Well… almost," I declared.

"What?" Heero looked around for something to hit, I guessed, to make things more perfect.

"I thought we could do something to this place to make it more… our own," I suggested.

"Fix the bathtub." Heero didn't like the way the faucet dripped. He had a thing about wasting things.

"Paint?" Trowa submitted with a load of caution in his voice.

Oooh! I didn't know the old claw-foot tub needed to be painted hot pink with shiny black toenails. _Until now._

_Home was never this good_

_Work was never this much fun_

_The weather was never this random_

_My love life was never this hot_

_When the pain returned I knew I was back_

_And made my dreams come true_

**The End.**

**Thank you for reading!**


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